Written by John Spencer | 27 September 2011

Until now if you had paid all the tax you were due to pay the Revenue could not ask you for more. For late submission of tax returns, only if tax was unpaid, you could be fined, reasonably enough since the Revenue was being deprived of income.

But now the Revenue have imposed penalties which could scale up to £1600 in total if you don't file your tax return - even if you have paid all the tax you are due to pay by the due dates.

Encouraging people to be efficient is one thing - naked greed is another. It has been some time since the Revenue could honestly hold their hands up and say they 'only seek the correct amount of tax due'; for some time they have employed 'tricks' to gain extra revenue where it should not be due. For example, refusing to agree a pre-submission of information in complex cases and insisting only on reviewing the information retrospectively and then fining for late payment if they disagree with interpretations they could have - and used to - preview.

Fines for delayed submissions, even where no tax is due, might be considered acceptable to encourage people to keep up to date, but a potential £1600 is surely too aggressive. It looks a lot like getting money out of people because they can, ratheer than because it is justifiably right. Even the Telegraph's 'Money Pages' somewhat pointedly referred to this as 'a nice little earner for the Treasury'.

But rules is rules and the deadlines are clear. 31st October for submisison of tax returns on paper, and 31st January for on-line submissions.